South Korean players compete against each other in the finals of the Red Bull Battle Grounds “StarCraft II” video game tournament in Atlanta, July 13, 2013.

Associated Press

South Korea is moving to ease online gaming rules on kids.

A national regulation imposed three years ago and known as the “shutdown” rule forces kids under the age of 16 to stop playing online games between midnight and 6 a.m. It will now be lifted upon parental request, the government said in a statement this week.

South Korea, home to ranks of young professional players of games like StarCraft and League of Legends, imposed the overnight gaming ban for kids as a step to tackle social problems such as gaming addiction. Under the system, everyone has to log in to games using their national I.D. number. Anyone under 16 who is playing when the clock hits midnight gets automatically booted out and can’t log back in.

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Episodes have been reported of young pro-gamers participating in finals at world championships disappearing from contests like Cinderella at midnight, puzzling their competitors overseas.

The effectiveness of the ban has been questioned because it’s easy for kids to skirt if they use their parents I.D.’s to log in. It’s also been subject to frequent complaints from the gaming industry, including Internet cafes that have to kick out young customers during some of their prime operation hours.

“Ultimately, we aim to increase the pool of adolescents that are able to have sensible control over their gaming hours without parental guidance,” Shon Ae-lee, the director of Youth Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, said in the statement.

The decision to be more lenient towards teenage gaming comes after president Park Geun-hye in April called for a more “reasonable” approach in regulating the gaming industry.

South Korea has long had a love-hate relationship with video gaming. Advocators cite the positive impact gaming companies can have on the economy while public sentiment tends to lean towards combating the antisocial side effects of games.